Latin gangs given a makeover

Barcelona: The look is all too familiar to residents of Los Angeles and most other major American cities. Baggy pants on young men who move in a half-slouch, half-swagger. Gothic tattoos snaking out of oversize T-shirts. Jerky hand signals, nicknames and secret rituals.

Gangs have come to Spain.

A decade of immigration from Latin America has given rise to groups with names such as Latin Kings, Vatos Locos and Mara Salvatrucha - veteran gangs born in Chicago, Puerto Rico or Los Angeles that are undergoing a kind of transatlantic globalisation.

Surge in crime

Their appearance in this country in the last few years, and reports linking them to a sudden surge in crime, has terrified Spaniards and forced them to confront yet another twist in the twin issues of immigration and integration: accepting their Hispanic brethren.

"The Spanish here tell me to go back to my country, to get out of theirs, the usual stuff," said Antonio, a tattooed 23-year-old from Ecuador who has been a member of the Latin Kings since he was 13 - first there, now here. "The Latin Kings is a way to protect and better myself."

In Barcelona, the capital of Spain's autonomous Catalonia region, authorities are conducting a controversial experiment: Rather than fight the gangs, they have granted legal status to a subset of the Latin Kings and its female auxiliary, the Latin Queens, recognising them as a "youth cultural association" with access to city funds and venues.

Officials hope to cultivate and integrate these youths into productive society, turning them away from the path of delinquency. It is too early to make broad conclusions, but officials say no violence or criminal activity has been associated with the group since the project was launched a few months ago. A second gang, the Netas, is considering coming on board.

Erika Jaramillo, aka Queen Melody, is the leader of the Latin Kings and Queens in Barcelona. Rejecting the label of violent gang, she said, members are "going straight," focusing on obtaining proper residency and work permits, learning to function in Spanish society and fighting for their rights and against discrimination.

"It's going to be a lot of long, hard work," she said.

Many of the gangs that have reproduced themselves in Spain, at least in name, are less violent than their US counterparts. Still, Spaniards greeted them with fear.

"We want to change the negative attitude people in Spain have toward us," Jaramillo said. "We don't want to have to be in parks and have the police come and chase us away, and to be asked all the time to show our documents. How long will it take for them to accept us?"

Prejudices

The experience of Central and South Americans in Spain exposes the prejudices of a nation that likes to think of itself as welcoming of immigrants and receptive to cultural diversity.

They share the same language, more or less, but Latin Americans speak Spanish with a very different accent. In Barcelona they have not learned the local language of Catalan, their skin is generally darker, and their features often reflect indigenous blood not typical of Spaniards.

"We have been racist - it must be said," said Josep Maria Lahosa, a Barcelona city official who sponsored the legalisation initiative. The bias that once focused on Gypsies and people from the Mideast, he said, has been directed at Latin Americans.